The
Truth About the RealAge Diet
The
RealAge Diet is another diet which claims to both help you lose
weight and help you age more slowly. The full title of the diet is
“The RealAge Diet: Make Yourself Younger with What You Eat.”
The man that created the diet is Doctor Michael Roizen, and he
believes that if you follow his advice, you will be able to actually
make yourself biologically younger as long as you eat
conscientiously. He places a strong emphasis on the idea that his
nutrition and lifestyle plan is explicitly not a diet, although it
will have the same impact on your health as a diet.
Rather
than give you a complex diet plan to follow, it simply encourages
healthy eating, which helps you achieve a healthy weight. Eating well
and losing weight will not only increase your lifespan but help you
make sure that those extra years are healthy years.
The
RealAge Diet at a Glance
Encourages
the enjoyment of nutritious food in a relaxing setting
Promotes
optimal health and minimizes mortality risk through diet
Places
an emphasis on whole grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, and soy
foods
Allows
wiggle room: Wine with dinner is acceptable, as well as a treat from
time to time
Who
Should Try the RealAge Diet?
This diet
is for men and women that have motivation and are willing to make the
effort to alter their diet for the good of their health. The goal of
this diet plan is to teach you how to live healthy with quality
information regarding nutrition and food.
Who
Should Try a Different Diet?
People
that are looking to simply lose weight should consider a different
diet. The RealAge Diet is created for individuals that are willing
and ready to make enduring changes in both their eating habits and
their lifestyle with the explicit goal of adding good years to their
life. The diet will encourage weight loss, but other diets may
achieve that end more quickly.
The
Specifics of the RealAge Diet
The
central concept behind the RealAge diet is that simply by choosing
the correct foods, you can effectively mitigate the risks of a number
of dangerous and deadly diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and heart
disease. The benefits of changing one's diet and lifestyle do not
only relate to chronic illness however. The diet also claims to help
you both feel and look younger. The RealAge Diet can be explained
quite simply, and Roizen explains the basic principles of the diet
succinctly: Eat nutrient dense, low calories foods that you enjoy.
One
interesting addition to the RealAge diet is that one of the first
steps of the diet is to figure out what your biological age truly is.
Roizen accomplishes this through an extensive quiz that spans more
than twenty pages. It goes through all aspects of your health status,
diet and lifestyle, explaining how these factors are all interrelated
and how good diet and lifestyle impact your life.
Unlike
many other diet plans, Roizen does not point to any supplement or
pill as the answer to your health problems. He also explains that
there is no magic ingredient or food group that will make you grow
old more slowly or lose weight more quickly. He also recognizes the
connection between stress, psychology, and eating, so he recommends
eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner in enjoyable and stress-free
environments.
What is
eating on the RealAge Diet like?
The
RealAge Diet does not involve any silver bullets or “surefire”
gimmicks, it simply outlines various guidelines for healthy eating.
There are a lot of basic principles that can help you live longer
that are simply ignored by many in 21st century America.
Among the
recommendations that Roizen makes is that you avoid empty calories,
simple sugars, trans fats, saturated fats, and red meat. These are
all things that many people have heard before, but Roizen goes
through the scientific principles behind why these foods are bad and
helps you figure out ways to effectively avoid them.
In
general, the RealAge Diet strongly cautions against the consumption
of foods that have a high glycemic index. These foods are terrible
for health because they lead to sudden spikes in insulin levels which
have a negative impact on hormone balance.
There is
strong evidence that High Glycemic Foods and Drinks encourage
obesity, diabetes, and weight gain. The RealAge Diet provides
fourteen days worth of example menus as well as twenty recipes, all
of which give you a general idea how to shape your own dietary
preferences and habits to fit the needs of your body.
RealAge
Diet Meal Examples
Breakfast
– Orange juice, soy milk, blueberries, kashi
Lunch –
Soy milk, a plum, and whole-wheat bread with whole fruit spread
Dinner
– Salad with olive oil, nuts, avocado, and canned tuna, red
wine, and whole grain crackers
Dessert
– Strawberries lightly
dipped in dark chocolate
Snack –
Whole Wheat Pretzel
RealAge
Diet Largely Freeform
While the
author provides example menus and recipes as a means to help you
conceptualize a healthier diet, there is no explicit system for
developing your own diet. The RealAge Diet provides you with a lot of
freedom to arrange your diet around your personal preferences.
The
RealAge Diet encourages healthier eating through education, and as
you take the RealAge Test, the author explains 127 elements which can
impact the aging process, causing you to grow and feel older more
quickly. Of the 127 elements, 25 of the factors are related to diet
and exercise, and he vividly explains how you need to alter your
lifestyle in order to improve your health and reduce your mortality
risk.
The
Expert Opinion on the RealAge Diet
This diet
is strongly influenced by modern scientific research, and is widely
agreed to be an incredibly healthy diet. Experts also appreciate that
Roizin encourages the consumption of plant foods high in
phytochemicals, which have been proven to prevent and safeguard
health by helping to prevent disease.
Although
the diet is believed to be incredibly healthy and effective, the
RealAge test is obviously very approximate, because there is no real
way to really tell how long you will live based on the way that you
score on a health test. Mortality risk is a probability equation, so
your RealAge has more to do with your odds of reaching a particular
age than a concrete measure of age based on a scoring system and
questionnaire, no matter how complex.
For
example, Roizen says that consuming foods high in phytochemicals
known as flavonoids, including grapes, chocolate, garlic, broccoli,
onions, and apples, have the ability to make your body 3.2 years
younger exactly. Roizen claims that every suggestion he makes in his
diet plan is confirmed by scientific research. On the other hand,
although there is research proclaiming that flavonoid-rich foods are
very healthy for you, there is no way to confirm how much longer or
shorter that you will live based off of your ability to follow any
particular health rule.
In spite
of this, the questionnaire does achieve worthwhile goals in spite of
only being an approximation, because it teaches you exactly how
making worthwhile changes to your diet and lifestyle has the ability
to powerfully impact your long term health.
With
regard to the diet itself, there is very little to complain about in
any facet. The diet is high in whole grains, nuts, vegetables, and
fruits. It does not rely on the use of supplements, but the author
does wisely suggest taking a mineral/multivitamin supplement just to
make sure that you get all of the nutrients that you need. He does
not recommend that you turn to any high-volume supplement with the
hopes that it will vastly improve your health.
Another
thing that experts really like about the RealAge Diet is the level of
emphasis that it places upon both physical exercise and general
activity level. Many other diets neglect discussion of good exercise
and activity habits, making it seem like it is possible to easily
lose weight and stay healthy just through diet alone.
There are
also two nutrients that the RealAge Diet pays particular attention
to, that other diets tend to neglect: Calcium and Vitamin C. He even
takes it a step further, he believes that Vitamin D is likely one of
the most essential vitamins needed in order to improve one's
resiliency to the aging process.
What
Are the Calorie Requirements of the RealAge Diet?
The
RealAge Diet doesn't place an emphasis on calorie counting, but it
still asserts the importance of being calorie-conscious. He even
provides serving sizes and calorie counts for a number of basic foods
you will be eating in your diet.
Although
he doesn't discuss caloric restriction in depth, he does provide a
calorie chart, which suggests recommended calorie consumption based
on weight, activity level, and height. The book also includes a chart
listing the number of calories burnt off by engaging in various forms
of physical exercise.
RealAge
Diet Recommendations
Vegetables,
Fruits, Low-Glycemic Index Foods, Lean Meats, Solid Multivitamin,
Eating in a Relaxing Atmosphere
RealAge
Diet Things to Avoid
Trans Fats
and Foods with a High Glycemic Index
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